The series "Verbal Art: Studies in Poetics" focuses on the study of the stylistic properties of literary works and on analyses of poetry and prose in theoretical, historical, and comparative perspectives. It deals with assays of those factors in works of verbal art that demarcate poetry from prose, and it investigates relationships between literature, on the one hand, and music, visual arts, and philosophy, on the other. It explores the effects produced on the semantic structure of language by the artistic experiments of poets and writers and seeks to understand the means by which speech is shaped into artistic wholes. The series also scrutinizes the wider effects of poetic practice: its relations to literary theory, to the interaction between the arts and society, and to the institutions of literary communication. Our goal is to work within and among various national traditions, poetic schools, and historical epochs, rather than to impose a priori theoretical generalizations. Different epochs of literary history and different movements within it are considered primarily in terms of changes in the economy of the signifier and in the organization of poetic material.

Poetry and poetics are at the heart of literary studies, and the analysis of verse forms is a key to the understanding and appreciation of art in general (verbal, visual, auditory, or conceptual). The series emphasizes, therefore, the importance of poets' own reflections on their art, whether expressed in their poetry or in their metaliterary statements. Though the editors deeply appreciate the scholarly legacy of Russian Formalism, Czech Structuralism, Phenomenology, and other twentieth-century European intellectual traditions, they welcome any scholarly contribution aimed at furthering the study of literary craft.